School of Sustainability

Our European School of Sustainability project brings together 23 groups from across Europe, Young Friends of the Earth Europe and Friends of the Earth International. Inspired by the Latin American Escuela de la Sustentabilidad, and driven by popular education techniques, the project aims to strengthen the regional network of Friends of the Earth Europe, and create common political analyses of system change from a social justice, environmental justice and human rights perspective. Exploring and building understanding on transformational education, will help challenge oppression, power and privilege in our work and the issues we are campaigning on.

The three year project will offer up over 1,000 local, national and international opportunities to mobilise, resist and transform. It will engage individuals and communities, and especially youth, in practical workshops, learning by doing, residential events and new and creative forms of working.

The project has so far included solidarity and integration work with refugees and migrants in Croatia, Sweden and Malta; actions & civil society meetings as responses to calls for solidarity with human rights defenders like Berta Cáceres all over Europe; European-level trainings on facilitation, unpacking power and privilege and theatre of the oppressed; cooking classes and food workshops in Hungary and Bulgaria; gardening and well-being workshops in Denmark; film festivals and debates e.g. on food sovereignty, degrowth, among others; practical solar energy workshops, and youth camps across Europe – all with the aim of linking system change and global issues to concerns close to home. It was also the foundation of network-wide mobilisation towards the climate talks in Paris. Our People. Power. Action. in Paris was the largest School of Sustainability event in Europe – bringing over 3,000 activists from across the Friends of the Earth federation.

Friends of the Earth Europe gratefully acknowledges financial assistance from the European Union. The contents of this website, and all School of Sustainability events and materials are the sole responsibility of Friends of the Earth Europe and cannot be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union. The European Union cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information provided.